


Birdcatcher

by Myssi



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: A LOT of Angst, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, I'm actually kinda proud of this one, M/M, No Character Death, OH MY GOD WOW, Some mention of violence and operations, Soulmate Signatures, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, but canon thinking of character death, side relationship: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 00:41:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4898899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myssi/pseuds/Myssi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Handwriting is a neat thing. It’s as individual as a fingerprint and infinitely more insightful than one, as handwriting can convey the writer’s emotions and feelings. It will even change with the writer, shifting itself slightly. That’s why, across the globe, when someone turns twenty-one, their soulmates signature will appear somewhere on their body.</p><p>Bucky Barnes wakes up with six signatures in six places, all with vastly different handwriting, but all bearing the same name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Handwriting is a neat thing. It’s as individual as a fingerprint and infinitely more insightful than one, as handwriting can convey the writer’s emotions and feelings. It will even change with the writer, shifting itself slightly. That’s why, across the globe, when someone turns twenty-one, their soulmates signature will appear somewhere on their body.

The signature never moves from that spot, and it will only experience slight changes as time goes on, changing with the real thing. People find it endearing to find their sigs a little more slanted after a year, or maybe the penmanship a touch thinner and more delicate.

Bucky Barnes wakes up with six signatures in six places, all with vastly different handwriting, but all bearing the same name.

He stares at the mirror in confusion, because it isn’t unheard of to have multiple signatures… with multiple names. But to have the same name repeated over and over on someone’s skin is definitely an anomaly.

‘Clint Francis Barton’ is carefully penned onto his left forearm with the utmost delicacy, with big loops. The penmanship is gorgeously artistic, and possesses the same flair as calligraphy. It is vastly different from the untidy, barely readable scrawl on his right bicep, which reads ‘C. Barton.’ Bucky has a hard time believing the two writings could belong to the same person.

The one on his right collarbone is spidery and has more space between the letters, like ‘Clint Barton’ was trying to be neat and not quite managing it. The sig takes up the entire bone, from the shoulder to the dip in his throat. It differs greatly from the very neat fine print on his right wrist, ‘Clinton B.’ obviously taking time and care with this sig. It is closer in similarity to the one that runs down the length his left calf, where ‘Clinton F. Barton’ had once again written in clear, though rushed print, given the slight tilt of the font.

The one that really catches his attention, however, is the one on his back.

Bucky isn’t really sure how he knows it is there… He just does. Call it a sixth sense, but he definitely knew the simple ‘CFB’ was adorning the small of his back before he cranes his neck around to catch a glimpse of it in the mirror.

Bucky wonders if he should tell someone, but shrugs it off. It isn’t like he’ll be able to hide them for very long anyway, unless he wants to dress in long sleeves and pants for the rest of his life.

\---

Steve is, of course, fascinated by the scrawls decorating Bucky. And though he may not say it, Bucky is a little proud to show them off.

Steve’s sig is more illegible than any of Bucky’s. It graces the palm of Steve’s left hand, just under the delicate fingers –‘Tony Stark.’

Steve loves his sig. He cradles his left hand and stares at it when he thinks Bucky isn’t looking. Bucky wonders vaguely if Steve had thought he was too sick to ever get a sig, if he thought he would die of his many ailments before ever getting a chance to meet his soulmate.

\---

When he enlists, he has to show all his sigs. It’s awkward. But the recruiter is amazed, even brings in one of the doctors. The man looks at each of Bucky’s sigs in awe, then looks at him and asks, “You do know what this means, right?”

Bucky shrugs, shaking his head.

“It’s not unheard of for this to happen, but it is rare. Your soulmate, whoever they are, can change their handwriting. Possibly at will. It’s a somewhat unusual thing, and it’s downright amazing that they can change their signature so freely.”

If Bucky walks out of the office a little smug, well. No one needs to know why.

\---

The soldiers in the 107th learn about Bucky’s sigs pretty quickly. Bucky doesn’t exactly try to hide them, with his shirt hanging low on his chest and his sleeves rolled up. When he explains why there are so many, with the same name repeated, he gets some low impressed whistles and some confused looks. But all of them seem to understand the special gift Bucky’s soulmate has.

But Bucky keeps getting one question over and over again; one that makes him frown in frustration.

“So, have you met him yet?”

\---

At night, after being asked that, he traces the loopy sig on his forearm - a habit he’s picked up. Even though he loves all his sigs, the calligraphy remains his favorite. He loves the way it looks on his skin.

\---

Bucky falls off a train. And the only thought he has is, “But I didn’t get to see him.”

\---

When he wakes up, all he feels is rage, because they’ve done something to him, and they took something far more than just his arm.

The cold metal is naked and blank, and his heart aches for loops and calligraphy.

\---

Over the years, there’s rumors of the Winter Soldier, and not just of his efficiency as an asset to HYDRA. There’s talk of multiple signatures all over his body, but with the same name scrawled over and over. Only the higher-ups know what name it is.

\---

His name is Bucky Barnes and he has signatures all over him.

His name is Bucky Barnes, and Steve Rogers – his mission, his friend - is telling him about the signatures all over him.

His name is Bucky Barnes, and he is no longer under HYDRA’s control.

\---

Steve wants him to meet someone.

Bucky isn’t sure who, because Steve won’t give him a name. Steve usually gives him names, like when he said, “I’m going to introduce you to Tony Stark, my soulmate,” and Bucky’s heart ached and he unconsciously traced loops and calligraphy that was no longer sketched on his skin but always etched in his brain, a memory that will never be erased.

He assumes Steve’s going to introduce him to yet another Avenger, and he’s lost track of all of them. Names swirl through his head and faces swim after them. He’s too scrambled to remember each of them individually, but Steve is insistent and Bucky’s never been able to turn Steve down.

And that’s when he meet a slim man with sandy blond hair, who has bandages wrapped on his arms and a band aid on his nose and across his eyebrow. Sharp grey eyes meet his with a sparkle behind them, and Bucky extends his hand.

“Hey there, the name’s Clint Barton and I’m the best shot on the team, even though Tony will try to tell you otherwise,” and just like that Bucky’s heart stutters and he feels his mind screech to a halt because it’s not possible, there is no way…

He stares at Clint, and Clint stares back, watching Bucky patiently as he processes, as he begins to hope. The archer gently turns the hand still grasped in his own, and runs his fingers lightly over the name inked across the inside of Bucky’s wrist.

 

“Hello, Bucky Barnes.”

\---

He learns that Steve read Clint’s file, and that apparently soulmate sigs are included in the files SHIELD keeps. He learns that Steve has told Clint all about Bucky, including where every single one of his sigs are. He learns that Clint used to go to the Captain America display and sit for hours, staring at black and white pictures of James Barnes, memorizing every detail of his face and longing for a man he thought long dead.

He learns all this, and then decides to learn about Clint Barton himself.

And there’s so much to learn, Bucky could sit and listen to his soulmate for hours. He watches Clint talk with big, wide eyes, staring at the other man like he can’t believe he exists because he can’t, he had been convinced this man was dead-

Clint has no idea how much Bucky loved him in the 40’s, and Bucky decides Clint deserves to know how much Bucky loves him in the present. So he lunges forward and kisses the archer, who is taken aback for only a moment.

Then he’s kissing back and Bucky wonders if this is what it feels like to be whole.

\---

Clint has Bucky on his bed, sprawled on his back, and Clint is mouthing over the sig on his collarbone when Bucky asks, “Where is yours?”  
He knows it’s somewhere under Clint’s clothing, because every time he sees Clint – which is quite often, since he’s in the process of being moved to the Tower and Clint comes to visit him as often as possible while he’s being housed by SHIELD – he has on pants and a short sleeve shirt and the sig is nowhere in sight.

Clint pauses and leans up a bit, cocking his head down at Bucky mischievously.

“It’s not really somewhere visible to the public.” He replies smoothly, raising an eyebrow at the man beneath him.

Bucky grins, rubbing a hand up Clint’s side. “Good thing I’m not the public.”

Clint shivers and pushes himself off the bed so he can stand. Bucky props himself up on his elbows, his eyes running down the length of his soulmate’s body appreciatively.

Clint meets the heated gaze, holds it, and carefully unzips and unbuttons his jeans. His left thumb hooks in the waistband, and Bucky feels his mouth run dry as he drags it down.

On the archer’s left hip, carefully tracing the curve of the bone, is the name “James Barnes,” in his handwriting.

There’s a keening noise, one Bucky doesn’t quite realize is his, and he’s off the bed and dragging Clint into his arms, his hands tangling in Clint’s hair as he kisses him again and again with Clint panting into his mouth. He turns them, tosses Clint onto the bed and then follows, slinking over his lithe body. His right hand holds Clint’s hip, his thumb tracing the sig as he pours all of his feelings into Clint, feels Clint shaking beneath him with the force of it all.

When he breaks the kiss, Clint stares up at him like he’s seeing Bucky for the first time. Bucky smirks, pressing a quick kiss to the blond’s lips one last time, then slides down to his still open jeans.

When he bites down lightly on the sig, the groan that growls from Clint’s chest makes his own pupils dilate and draws out a possessive sound of his own. He runs his tongue over the hipbone before latching down and sucking.

Clint’s hips buck up and he shouts, staring down at Bucky with wide, disbelieving eyes and a heaving chest. The want in his gaze makes Bucky ache to the very core. He decides this must definitely be what it feels like to be whole, and he wonders how he ever lived without this gorgeous, beautiful man in his arms.

Maybe he hadn’t, though. Maybe he’d just survived.

\---

Clint is ambidextrous, which is one way he’s able to change his writing so easily. The left hand is neater, and when Bucky tells Clint about the loops and the calligraphy his heart aches for, Clint grabs a permanent marker and Bucky’s metal arm.

The team doesn’t mention the marker sig on Bucky’s arm. They don’t mention how a fresh layer of ink is applied often, ensuring it never fades.

But it’s not that easy, just switching hands to change handwriting. Clint only has a certain level of control over it, and it’s not uncommon for him to slip into different scrawls while writing for long periods – like when he’s writing to Bucky while on a long mission.

Bucky loves those letters.

He especially loves how he can see the shifts in the writing, how it changes three or four times over the multiple pages. And it makes Bucky fall in love with Clint over and over again.

When Clint comes home from those missions, he often stunned by the ferocity with which Bucky kisses him.

\---

“Fuck, Barton, what’d you run into?”

Tony is staring at the archer, whose baggy sweatpants have slipped down just enough to reveal the top of some massive bruising across his left hip. Clint looks down and Bucky smirks into his coffee mug as the blond does his best not to blush.

“Ah, doorframe.”

Clint shoots Bucky a glare, and he delicately raises an eyebrow at his soulmate because really? Doorframe is the best he can come up with?

The glare he receives is murderous, and Bucky loves it. And the scowl only deepens as he responds by taking another swig of coffee, looking like he’s not listening in on the conversation.

“A doorframe? Are you sure you weren’t thrown into one?” Tony isn’t necessarily the biologist of the team, but he’s not daft enough to believe simply running into a doorframe leaves behind any bruises. Not even light bruises, and certainly not dark ones that mottle slightly purple.

He isn’t sure how long Clint could avoid the “I really love it when my boyfriend sucks massive hickeys on my sig and then goes down on me” topic, but he is definitely going to stick around and time it.

\---

“Do you know what they call the soulmates of people like me?” Clint asks him as he traces over the newest sig addition on Bucky’s neck, just over the scarring of the metal arm.

Over the last two years, more and more sigs have been forming. The original five are still there, there’s the one he lost, and now there’s three more. With nine sigs, Bucky is quickly starting to take on the appearance of someone with a fondness for tattoos.

As long as it’s Clint’s name, he’s okay with that.

“I didn’t know we had a name.” He stares at Clint, feeling love swell in his chest for the man, for the concentrated look on his face.

“Yeah, I looked it up when I was a kid. They call you guys ‘birdcatchers.’” He rolls his eyes as Bucky quirks an eyebrow at him. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Back in the 1800’s there was this horse named Birdcatcher who had these mottled white spots. Horses with those spots can gain more over time and all that, and it might be tied to some gene. It was so similar to the gene that causes the multiple sigs – I guess – they decided to call the soulmates of people with ‘spontaneous handwriting’ birdcatchers.”

It’s a suiting title in more ways than one, Bucky decides as he eyes his soulmate. Hawkeye really is quite the catch.

\---

If Bucky never sees the inside of another HYDRA facility, it’ll still be too soon. The only time he ever wants to be close to one of those hellholes is when he’s blowing one up.

But he isn’t blowing one up this time.

“He’s gotten more sigs since he’s been gone! Holy shit, do you think he found his soulmate?” One of his captors has a gun under Bucky’s chin, tipping his face up so he can examine the neck sig more closely. Bucky’s glare is burning holes in the man’s face.

“Boss ain’t gonna be happy either way. He’s gonna order those covered, considering how we lost him the first time. Can’t afford to do it again.”

A shock of cold fear slices through Bucky. How do you cover a sig?

He doesn’t get a chance to wonder, because he spots his chance for escape as the one holding the gun looks over his shoulder at the other. He’s grabbing the gun, whipping it around and shooting the two guards. Then he’s bolting out of the room, down the hall…

Right into six more guards. His gun jams. A needle slides into his neck.

\---

He blearily comes to in the chair that haunts his nightmares, shackled down and with his torso bared as an unfamiliar face looms over his chest, carefully examining his bicep, his collarbone, his neck. He growls.

The man merely gives him a steady look, holding his glare easily. Bucky gathers his strength, and then spits in his face.

The man – he supposes this is HYDRA’s new asset handler – rears back, disgust littering his features. Bucky feels like he’s glowing with the satisfaction it brings.

The handler pulls a handkerchief square from his suit pocket, takes off his glasses and wipes his face. The looks he throws at Bucky is vindictive.

“Wipe him. Put him under. Remove them. All of them.”

The glowing feeling is gone, chased away with dread nipping closely at its heels. Bucky feels the blood drain from his face as someone moves forward to put the mouth guard in.

He lunges forward, against the bonds, a scream ripping from him.

“You can’t have them! No!” He thrashes, his head whipping around to latch onto the wrist of the hand holding the disgusting piece of plastic, every instinct screaming at him to get free, to find safety – to find Clint – because they’re going to take them away, they’re somehow going to steal his sigs right out of his skin-

 

Another needle slides into his neck.

\---

He feels like he should be cold.

The air is cold, but he’s not cold. In fact, his entire back is warm, and there’s two bands of warmth around his midsection. His head is groggy, sluggish, and he hears beeping.

Hospital, he registers. He must be in a hospital.

Bucky groans, and the bands around his waist – arms – tighten slightly, and a shaky breath releases in his ear.

“Morning, handsome.”

Bucky drags his eyes open to look at the dimly lit hospital room, because that’s Clint. He groans softly again, his right hand coming up to rest over Clint’s intertwined arms. He feels like a tank backed up over his head and there’s a sharp burning over his collarbone.

A glance down shows his a thick gauze taped onto his chest, right over the sig. His brain screeches to a halt and his heart feels like it clenches.

“Clint,” he breathes shakily, “what did they do to me?”

A kiss is pressed gently into his hair, and the archer behind him sighs softly. “Drugged you. Tried to remove your sigs. I got there before they got the chance to even attempt to wipe you.”

“Tried to… What?” Bucky shifts and Clint’s arms loosen slightly, allowing the soldier to find a position to gaze up at the blond.

Clint shifts uncomfortably before explaining. “A couple of months ago we started finding HYDRA agents with no sigs. Too many to be a coincidence. A closer examination of the corpses showed that HYDRA was using skin grafts to remove them… We interviewed one of their agents that we had in custody about it. Apparently they figured that your sigs caused you to go rogue and that’s why they lost you. Now every HYDRA agent has to get their sig removed.” Clint rubs a thumb over Bucky’s wrist, his eyes shining down at the brunette with concern. “It shows you how heartless they really are.”

Clint cups Bucky’s jaw, lowering his lips to the other man’s for a kiss. The angle is awkward but it makes Bucky’s head spin with the surge of emotion it springs in his chest. The possessiveness Clint is conveying with the simple press of lips blows his mind a bit.

The blond pulls back to rest his forehead on Bucky’s, gazing down at him.

“When I found you, they had you so heavily drugged you couldn’t move…” Clint chokes a little, tears filling his eyes. “But you were awake, Bucky. Your eyes were open and you were crying and even though you couldn’t speak you were mouthing ‘no’ over and over again.” Clint squeezes his eyes shut, and in return Bucky tangles his fingers with his archer’s and squeezes.

“It’s okay, doll. I’m fine now. And you don’t have to tell me.” His free hand finds its way up to cover Clint’s cheek, his thumb gently brushing away a tear. Clint gives a soft broken gasp, and Bucky’s heart breaks.

“They were trying to take it away from you, Bucky. And I got so mad… They already took one from you, and I swear to you they will never take any more.”

\---

Clint’s jumpy a for about a week after Bucky is released, long after he’s healed and gotten over the heavy sedatives HYDRA had knocked him out with. Bucky’s not sure how long Clint’s going to hover over him, but he’s not going to complain – especially since the archer had seen him in such a traumatic state.

However, he does draw the line when Steve throws his arms over his shoulders and Clint comes flying over of nowhere. The agent’s fist flies into Steve’s jaw, effectively punching  Captain America in the face.

 

However, mortal hands are no match for superhuman jaws. Clint breaks the two bones connected to the index and middle finger in his bow hand, and it’s after this incident that

Bucky finally sits down with the archer and has him talk about his feelings, even if it does take all night.

After that, Captain America doesn’t get punched by his teammates anymore.

\---

It takes years for Bucky to go out in public.

On the day he does, he’s in a tank top and shorts, and he proudly displays as many as Clint Barton’s eleven signatures as he can, even the one meticulously penned onto the metal arm as he walks next to the man himself. The paparazzi has a photo fest, all of them trying to get the sigs.

Bucky knows there’s three they won’t get, that only eight will show up in the papers tomorrow.

There’s the initials in the small of his back that only he and Clint are intimately acquainted with. Then there’s the new ones, a spidery cursive one across his right scapula, and then the careful, scattered penmanship down his entire left ribcage – one letter on every rib.

The next morning, the papers all have the same headline; “The Winter Soldier, a Birdcatcher!”

Bucky is reading the corresponding article in the Avenger’s dining room over his coffee when Clint wanders in. He catches the headline and a grin splits his face before he reaches over and grabs Bucky’s face, drawing him into a kiss.

“My little birdcatcher,” he murmurs.

\---

There’s only eleven.

Clint picks up a habit of scrawling out different signatures every time he has to sign something, but three years after the final sig appears on Bucky’s body, the soldier is pretty certain that he’s done collecting Clint’s name on his body.

But Clint doesn’t drop the habit.

“Why do you keep that up?” Bucky finally asks, four years after his final sig showed up.

Clint looks up at him with a small smile. “Because if I keep trying, maybe one will form over your heart.”

Bucky’s pretty sure Clint’s name is all over his heart, with every signature he’s ever written.

\---

“Have I told you how much I love them?”

Clint is tracing the sig on Bucky’s wrist, Bucky’s head on Clint’s right shoulder and his arm wrapped around the other’s waist, hand lightly resting over his own sig on Clint’s left hip – which is thoroughly bruised, hickeys blooming across it. The sight of it makes pride bloom in Bucky’s chest.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d have more than one or not, but I hoped that you would.” Clint looks down at Bucky with a little smile as Bucky quirks an eyebrow at him.

“Why?”

“Because,” he whispers, dropping a kiss to Bucky’s brow, “that way people know for certain that you are mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you guys enjoyed this AU, because I've never seen anything like this done before! I can change my handwriting like Clint - though not as dramatically - and my signature is very rarely exactly the same. 
> 
> Also, Birdcatcher is a real horse and a real term used in the horse world, I really hope you guys liked that idea, I thought it fit really well. 
> 
> Shoutout to my awesome beta, Miniatures, who is literally my lifeline when it comes to writing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s two in the morning, and there’s a soft knock on the door to the suite.
> 
> But no one knocked at the door at two in the morning. Except one person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So mekana47 left a comment on Chapter 1, and it inspired me to write this and it's really angsty and made my beta cry. Then my beta was sad and I kinda made an offhand comment about a third chapter and now I have to go through with it so. Yeah. There's gonna be more.

It’s two in the morning, and there’s a soft knock on the door to the suite.

Steve glances down at Tony to see his soulmate still sleeping peacefully, curled up against his side. He’d only dragged the engineer to bed an hour ago, convincing him that forty-eight hours was definitely enough time awake and not enough time asleep. Steve, not needing as much sleep as the average being, was taking the time to read with Tony curled at his side, reveling in the perfection of the moment.

But no one knocked at the door at two in the morning. Except one person.

He sighs and nudges Tony’s shoulder, smiling as the genius grumbles and buries his face in the pillow.

“Tony,” he urges gently, shaking the man slightly, “you gotta get up.”

Brown eyes blearily open to meet his own, and then become serious at the look on Steve’s face.

“Oh,” Tony’s awake now, his voice groggy but clear, “shit.”

Steve stands and walks to the door, opening it. “Hey, Clint.”

The archer looks terrible. His eyes are watery and wide, and he looks distant, like he’s somewhere else entirely. He’s shaking, looking at Steve like he’s begging for someone to save him.

“Steve,” he chokes out, and then he’s falling forward, his arms gripping around Steve’s waist like it’s all he can do to hold on, as he sobs gently into his chest. Steve turns to look over his shoulder, and meets Tony’s sad, knowing gaze.

Tony frees his legs from the covers and pads over, bringing his hands up to rest lightly on Clint’s shoulders, know all too well how jumpy the man got on nights like this. “C’mon Barton,” he murmurs, using his fingers to ease the man back from Steve. “Let’s get you fixed up.”

Clint allows himself to be pulled away from Steve and ushered to the couch in their living area, doesn’t protest as Tony fusses over him, sitting him on the couch and wrapping a blanket on his shoulders. Tony kneels in front of their teammate, lifting his hands to cradle Clint’s face and brush the tears away with his thumbs. Clint’s minor breakdown has subsided now that he’s not buried in Steve’s chest, and he simply stares at Tony’s vacantly as tears slip down his cheeks, only to be wiped away by Tony.

At this point, Steve knows Tony has it handled. They’ve played in these roles enough times. He makes his way to the kitchen area as Tony asks, “wanna tell me about it?”

He pulls out a kettle and a few tea bags, the quiet murmuring in the living area drowned out by the sound of softly bubbling water.

 He catches the sound of Tony walking into the kitchen behind him and turns at the sound of the familiar footsteps. Tony sighs, rubbing his face and looking haggard. Steve holds up his arms, and Tony instantly gravitates toward him. The shorter man holds onto Steve tightly for just an instant, before pulling back slightly to look Steve in the eye.

“Do you remember the photo I had copied?” Steve nods. “I need to you get it. I’ll watch the tea.”

They always knew this day was going to come, because nights like this happen too often, and this was the only way they know to make it better. Maybe.

“What happened tonight?” There was always a trigger.

Tony bites his lip. “Flashback. Loki, of course. When isn’t it Loki? So he, uh… He tried watching the documentary about the Commandos. But then the part about Bucky’s sigs came up and he lost it.” Tony sighs shakily, not meeting Steve’s eyes. “I could have told him that it wouldn’t help.”

Tony isn’t looking at Steve, and the captain knows not to push. These nights are as hard for Tony as they are for Clint, because it drags back all the memories Tony had tucked away, all the memories of the years without Steve.

Steve presses a kiss to Tony’s forehead, holding him tightly for a brief second before he leaves the kitchen area, trusting Tony to not accidentally blow up the stove. As he walks over to his nightstand, he glances at Clint.

Wide eyes watch him but don’t see him. Clint is curled up so tightly on the couch, coiled and obviously ready to defend himself. It’s heartbreaking to see, and Steve forces himself to tear his eyes away and dig through his nightstand.

When he finds what he’s looking for, he straightens slowly, his fingers tracing over the face of James Barnes. His best friend.

The photo is old, black and white and obviously from the war. Bucky is rough around the edges, but his smile is huge. His collarbone is exposed and one of the sigs is obvious, dog tags dangling. It’s Clint’s best hope.

He sighs and turns, striding slowly over to the blond on his and Tony’s couch. Clint’s clever eyes are dull, and the sniper doesn’t seem to notice as Steve pulls a footstool over to sink down in front of him.

“Clint,” he calls softly, and the archer flinches. Grey eyes meet blue.

Steve doesn’t know what to say, so he just holds out the photo. Shaky fingers reach for it and practically snatch it from Steve, but he doesn’t say anything. An unsteady breath leaves Clint as he delicately traces Bucky’s face, and the look of broken sadness on his face makes Steve feel helpless.

How is it that he got landed with trying to hold the crumbled pieces of Bucky’s soulmate together?

“Cap?”

Clint’s voice is soft, barely there. Steve looks up.

“Hm?”

“Would he have loved me?”

Steve thought his heart was already breaking for Clint, but now he knows his heart has shattered thanks to those words. He looks up, beyond Clint, and see Tony watching them silently, a mug of tea in his hands as he leans against the doorway.

He looks back at the archer, and finds desperate grey eyes.

“He already loved you.” He whispers, and Clint blinks in surprise. “He’d talk about everything he was going to do when he finally met you, like how he was going to take you to the theatre and watch you laugh. He wanted to take you on walks around Central Park and hold your hand, then sit with you on a bench while feeding the squirrels.”

Tears have started falling again, tracing shiny paths across Clint’s cheekbones, but his eyes are clearer than they’ve been all night, so Steve carries on.

“He used to trace this sig he had on his left arm. I don’t think he even knew that he did it. If you got him drunk enough, he’d brag on and on about how he had a talented soulmate, because they could change their handwriting. Sometimes I had to stop him from taking his shirt off, because he was so set on showing off all those sigs.”

Clint’s eyes are so, so shiny, but Steve thinks that there may be a glimmer of small pride in them. “How many did he have? I mean. I know the number, just….” Clint looks at him hopelessly, and Steve understands.

“Six. And he wasn’t afraid to boast about it either. If the Commandos teased him about them, he’d talk about how none of them were invited to the wedding.”

At Clint’s wide eyed look, he chuckles. “Bucky was a romantic, Barton, of course he was planning on marrying you. He was set on marrying you ever since he was twenty-one. He liked to talk about how he hoped you would think his ass looked good in his uniform.”

That pulls a laugh from Clint, and Steve hopes that maybe he’s brought Clint back to a good place.

He tells Clint stories for another hour. At some point, Tony walks over to push the mug of tea into the archer’s slightly fumbling hands, taking care to set the photo to the side first. The mechanic levels Clint with a look, and obediently Clint takes a long, careful sip.

By the time the archer has fallen asleep, it’s five in the morning. Tony drags Steve back to their bed, and curls close to him, quivering slightly. Steve wraps an arm around him, and pulls him in tightly.

“Was it ever that bad for you?” He’s afraid of the answer, but he needs to know.

“Yes. But at least he has us to help him.”

\---

When they wake up, about four hours later, Clint is long gone, the mug is washed and the blanket is folded. The photo has been whisked away with the sniper.

When they see Clint, they don’t talk about it. They never do.

\---

When Steve finds Bucky again, the thrill isn’t just for finding his best friend, because all his thoughts are running back to the broken man in the tower, and how he can fix him.

The broken man who doesn’t sleep until he’s so exhausted he can’t stand, the one who doesn’t eat until Nat levels him with a look of such concern that he eats out of sheer guilt. The one who shoots arrows until he can’t feel his arms and runs until he can’t feel his legs.  

The one who hides in the vents with his hearing aids out because the sound of his own screaming keeps haunting him.

But Bucky is alive, and there is hope for Clint Barton.

\---

Clint punches Steve, but Steve understands. He saw the shattered man and he watched Bucky glue him together again. He saw the fear in Clint’s eyes when Bucky was captured and the archer thought he was going to break again.

\---

Clint doesn’t knock on the door to the suite at two am anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No beta for this chapter because I wrote really fast and wanted to get it out here. Let me know if anything major needs fixing! 
> 
> Also, please leave comments? I love comments. They make my day, like, ten times better. Kudos too!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Imagine getting your sig, looking up the name… And the person is dead. Has been dead for seventy years. How are you supposed to deal with that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No beta because it's so late - sorry everyone! Let me know if there's anything I need to fix!

Clint has a lot of nightmares, Bucky learns. And they’re terrible, because Clint wakes up screaming and he can’t even hear himself.

Every time he wakes up to Bucky holding him, rocking him, Clint cries. And then he holds on to Bucky and kisses him like he can’t believe Bucky exists.

When Bucky brings it up to Steve, his friend goes very, very quiet, and Bucky worries. Steve is silent for what seems like forever, like he can’t find the words. He sits there, staring, sorting out his thoughts while Bucky waits patiently.

“It was… easy for you and me, Bucky. Easier. We figured we’d find them after the war. Then I crashed and you got-” here he simply gestures at Bucky, who takes it for what it is. Brainwashed. Tortured. Made in an asset. Whatever you wanted to call it.

“But for them, it was so much worse. Imagine getting your sig, looking up the name… And the person is dead. Has been dead for seventy years. How are you supposed to deal with that?” Steve huffs out a sigh, dropping his head into his hands as Bucky tries to process that, to process the fact the Clint had been forced into thinking that he would never, _never_ meet his soulmate. Fear settles in his gut, and clenches.

“Tony was an anomaly. Kinda like you, except his showed up when he was seven.” Steve looks up at Bucky, the heartbreak in his eyes tearing at Bucky’s chest.

“Imagine being seven years old and having your dad tell you every day about how your soulmate sacrificed himself. And imagine being told every day that it was a damn good thing your soulmate was dead, because it meant you wouldn’t be distracted from running a goddamn company.”

Bucky dropped his eyes because he couldn’t bear to meet Steve’s eyes, unsure if he could handle that amount of pain.

“But Clint… Well, Clint had it a lot worse. Because Tony got me, but Clint went through Loki and then had nightmares. A… A lot of them.”

He can tell by Steve’s voice that his friend is trying to be delicate, he’s trying to protect Bucky. But Bucky knows there’s no easy way to deliver this kind of blow.

“How bad?”

“… He slept on our couch a lot. If you can call it sleeping. Tony was the only one who understood him… And when the sobbing started I always left. It felt like intruding.”

Bucky feels a breath shudder out of his chest, one he didn’t realize he was holding, as he slowly sank down in a seat across from Steve.

“How the hell do we fix them?”

Steve shakes his head slowly. “We can’t. We can only make them a little better, I think.”

\---

Clint wakes up gasping, his bare chest heaving against the chilled air, goosebumps dotting his skin. For once, Bucky smiles at the sight of his boyfriend waking up so violently, though it was with admitted difficulty.

“Buck – oh my god –what the – _shit_ ,” Clint pants at him, eyes blown wide as he stares down at the other man before his head falls back on the pillow, an arm flinging up wildly to cover his eyes. A groan rips from him as Bucky does a particularly talented swipe with this tongue, and the groan extends into a yelp as Bucky hollows his cheeks and _sucks,_ causing the archer to arch almost violently as the soldier steals his orgasm from him.

Bucky pulls off with an obscene pop, crawling up Clint’s lax body and sealing his lips over Clint’s gently, a stark contrast to the hunger he’d exhibited just seconds before. Clint returns the press of lips, his arm slipping off his eyes as Bucky’s right hand reaches up to cradle his jaw.

“Morning,” he murmurs against the agent’s mouth with a smirk. “Sleep well?”

“Mm,” Clint hums, jutting up his chin to catch Bucky’s mouth again, his teeth nipping gently and tugging on his soulmate’s lower lip as he pulls away to break the kiss. The archer pouts up at the brunette as he starts to sit up a bit.

“Up and at ‘em, gorgeous. I have plans for today.” Clint furrows his eyebrows at Bucky, his eyes drifting downward for a second before Bucky waves away the gaze. He glances up questioningly, and catches the soldier’s soft smile. “Today is about you, baby.”

Bucky lifts up his hand – the real one – and softly traces Clint’s cheek, before rising from the bed and leaving the room, leaving Clint staring after him and wondering.

\---

Seeing Clint pad out into the kitchen, sleepy still and looking slightly boneless from his earlier orgasm steals the breath from Bucky. He pauses his actions, briefly forgetting that scrambled eggs burn easily while trying to rescramble his brains. His eyes flit appreciatively over Clint’s bare back as his archer heads straight to the coffee pot to lift it to his lips and take a long swig. Bucky had always hated coffee – something he had found out when he’d first tried it after getting free of HYDRA’s grasp. Coffee cake, coffee ice cream, coffee flavored _anything_ he hated.

But he loved chasing the taste of coffee out of Clint’s mouth. Of course he might be slightly biased in that area.

He turns his attention back to scrambled eggs, the low hum of the microwave and light sizzling of bacon filling the silence. However, he feels a gaze lingering on him, and the fact that he knows the eyes behind that look distracts him easily.

“If you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to burn the eggs hun.” Bucky hums, keeping his attention on the pan in front of him.

“Like what? I’m definitely not looking at you.”

“Mm-hm. Definitely. You’re totally not looking at my ass right now.”

Clint chokes a bit behind him, and Bucky smirks, casting a glance over one shoulder to meet Clint’s grumpy glare. He blew a kiss toward his sniper, who rolled his eyes – though his free hand does curl loosely, forming an ‘I love you” sign at Bucky.

It’s so painfully domestic, it makes Bucky’s heart ache. He’s never felt so happy.

\---

“Why are we going to Central Park?”

Bucky dares a glance at Clint’s face, and confirms his suspicion; under the easy look, the curious grin, is the shadow of a painful memory. He looks away as he remembers his troubled talk with Steve, glancing down at Lucky and idly patting the mutt’s head.

_“Imagine getting your sig, looking up the name… And the person is dead. Has been dead for seventy years. How are you supposed to deal with that?”_

If he holds Clint’s hand a little tighter and huddles a little closer as they enter the park, that’s his business.

“Because, I haven’t taken you to the park yet and it’s something I’ve always wanted to do.” He dares to meet Clint’s eyes again, at the stunned look. “Yeah, I… Got a few memories back. Of you. Well, of before, when I would talk about you.” He feels a blush color his cheeks, and Clint tugs him to a stop.

Clint steps up to cradle Bucky’s face, their chests crowded together. Lips press to his shakily as his hands come up to bracket his boyfriend’s hips. The blond exhales slowly against his mouth before Clint’s face is tucked against his neck and his arms are tugging him impossibly closer.

“You make me so happy,” Clint whispers. “Every day.”

The words make Bucky want to cry. He sniffs a bit, clutching Clint’s shoulders tighter. A trembling sigh shudders out of him, before he pulls away a bit, smiling down at the watery grey eyes in front of him.

“C’mon babe. We’ve got a park to explore.” Lucky is gazing up at them, his face open and smiling, his one eye bright and eager.

\---

“Bucky, I realize you’ve been under the control of a rogue organization for the last seventy years, but are you really telling me that you’ve never heard of Balto?”

“Y’know that rogue organization didn’t really concern themselves with making sure their assets knew about current children’s movies. Or any movies, current or otherwise.”

If someone had told the Winter Soldier he would be strolling through Central park with a dog in one hand and his gorgeous soulmate hanging off the other, he probably would have punched them. As such, Bucky was really quite content to be exactly where he was, with Lucky trotting ahead of them easily, nose to the ground and tail wagging to and fro.

The wind picked up, fluttering leaves across the path. Lucky barked, moving to pounce on one. Bucky smirked at the dog, simultaneously pulling Clint’s hand and tucking it into his jacket pocket.

“HYDRA is clearly more evil than previously thought. I’m going to inform Fury. This is cause for drastic measures.”

The words pull a chuckle from Bucky. “You mean to tell me you’re going to tell Fury that he needs to double his efforts toward taking down HYRDA just because I never saw some kid’s movie?”

“Exactly. Not that the kids movie is entirely accurate. For one thing, Balto wasn’t a wolfdog, and he didn’t do all the work like it implies – there was another team led by a dog named Talto…”

Bucky ran his thumb over Clint’s knuckles, feeling a smile tug at the corners of his lips. Clint liked to ramble, and he would happily listen all day.

\---

Bucky cocks his head at the dog statue in front of him as Lucky sniffs at the base, tail whipping back and forth. It’s too early for there to be any people around, plus it’s a weekday – the statue is vacant of people, except for them.

“He’s smaller than I thought.”

Clint gives him an affronted look. “How dare you say that about a true hero.”

Bucky shrugs one shoulder. “Tony’s a hero too. He was a lot smaller than I thought.”

“He’s smaller than everyone thinks.”

Clint looks back at the statue, while Bucky gazes at his soulmate. After a beat, Clint turns back to him to smirk.

“Now who’s staring?”

“Me,” he answers easily, ignoring the opportunity to playfully jab back. “Because I adore you. And because this is a date I’ve waited over seventy years for, and I finally get to have it.”

Clint’s eyes are shiny as he blinks up at Bucky. “Cap told you about before, didn’t he?”

“I’m the one who asked. I knew something had to have happened. The nightmares were very telling, but not as much as the way you acted after them.” He sighs, turning away from the statue to cradle Clint’s face in his hands, the handle of Lucky’s leash slipping down around his wrist. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

Clint’s hands come up to hold Bucky’s, thumbs tracing circles. “It’s not your fault.”

“No. But I can still apologize. And I’m not going anywhere, ever.”

“Yeah.” Clint smiles, “I know.”

Maybe the park had not been as vacant as previously thought, because within the hour the kiss by the Balto statue was plastered on websites everywhere. Bucky couldn’t bring himself to care in the least, because Clint’s smile for the rest of the week was more than worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for Birdcatcher! Thank you everyone for reading this fic, it became more popular than I ever could have imagined! 
> 
> There will be a fic that goes along with this one following Steve and Tony - it's already got a name picked out and everything, so please let me know if you're interested in that so I can start working on it. There's lot of angst involved. 
> 
> Finally - I made a tumblr just for my writing and so I can cry about Avengers! You can follow me at www.captain-asexual.tumblr.com


End file.
